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Stuff from Johannesburg

We will clean up Ekurhuleni’s captured safety system and fix the EMPD

Statement by Geordin Hill-Lewis – Leader of the Democratic Alliance:

Yesterday, I joined the DA’s Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate, Khathutshelo Rasilingwane, in Daveyton to hear directly from residents about crime, failing services and the collapse of trust in local government.

What we heard confirms what the Madlanga Commission has already exposed, that Ekurhuleni has become the frontline in the fight against police and metro police corruption.

A city cannot be safe when its own safety structures are compromised.

Ekurhuleni residents deserve a government that protects them from criminals, not one where elements of the system meant to enforce the law are themselves corrupt, hunting whistleblowers and abusing power.

The Madlanga Commission has placed serious allegations involving SAPS, the City of Ekurhuleni and the EMPD in the national spotlight, including allegations of corruption, fraud and other criminal conduct by officials and officers.

This is the difference between the DA and the parties that have allowed Ekurhuleni to decline. They endlessly discuss reform while residents live with fear, corruption and failing basic services.

The DA will not look away from criminality in uniform, political interference in policing, or the rot inside the institutions meant to keep communities safe.

Under Khathutshelo Rasilingwane’s leadership, a DA government in Ekurhuleni will rebuild the EMPD into a professional, disciplined and community-focused metro police service. We will strengthen internal anti-corruption systems, ensure consequence management for corrupt officers, improve visible policing, support proper coordination with SAPS, and restore the EMPD’s core mission: keeping residents safe and enforcing the law without fear or favour.

Ekurhuleni can be so much more than a city held back by crime, corruption and failing services.

It can once again become the industrial heart of South Africa where families feel safe, people have jobs and communities are served by a government that is honest, capable and close to the people.

That is the change Khathutshelo Rasilingwane and the DA are offering.

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The Randlord Mansions: Palaces of the Mining Elite

The move to Parktown began in the 1890s, led by the likes of Sir Lionel Phillips and his wife, Lady Florence Phillips. They sought a location that was close enough to the gold mines for business but high enough to catch the clean breezes of the Highveld. The result was a neighborhood of architectural opulence that had no equal in the Southern Hemisphere. These were not mere houses; they were sprawling estates designed by the most famous architects of the British Empire, including Sir Herbert Baker, who brought a “Cape Dutch-meets-Arts-and-Crafts” aesthetic to the rocky ridges of Johannesburg.